Assessment of China’s Contribution in Regional Network for Asian Schistosomiasis: A Questionnaire Survey

Background The Regional Network for Asian Schistosomiasis and other Helminth Zoonoses (RNAS+) was launched 20 years ago, which has established close partnerships for counties endemic with Asian schistosomiasis and other helminthiasis, and provided an ideal regional platform for experts in the fields of control and research of parasitic diseases in Asian countries, as well as policy-making. As one of the initiating countries, China has provided significant techinal and financial supports to the regional network. This paper is to assess those contributions from China side to support the development of RNAS+.Methods An anonymous, web-based questionnaire was designed to acquire the relevant responses. The content included the basic information of respondents, China’s contributions, challenges and recommendation for the RNAS+’s development. Each participant was asked to indicate a score from 0 to 10 to assess the China’s contribution’s value, while “0” represented no contribution, and “10” was 100% contribution. The participants who leave E-mail address in the 2017 to 2019 RNAS+ annual workshops were enrolled. SPSS 20.0 was used for statistics analysis.Results A total of 71 participants enrolled, and 41 of them responded to the survey. Those were from Indonesia(n=8, 19.5%), China(n=7, 17.1%), Thailand(n=7, 17.1%), Cambodia(n=5, 12.2%), Philippines (n=4, 9.8%), Vietnam(n=3, 7.3%), Myanmar(n=2, 4.9%), Laos(n=1, 2.4%), and other 4 respondents (9.8%) were the international observers. Most of respondents are familiar with RNAS+ (34/41, 82.93%). According to the survey, China’s contribution is mainly responsible in the improving of capacity building, funding support, coordination, and cooperation programmes, and the average score of China’s contribution in the above four fields were 8.92, 8.64, 8.75, and 8.67, respectively. The overall assessment score is 8.81. The challenges of RNAS+ is lack sustainable funding and skills, and most of participants point out that they need China’s support continually.Conclusions This survey showed that China plays an important contribution in the development of RNAS+. This network-type organization on disease control and research can yet be regarded as a great potential pattern for China to enhance regional cooperation.